PANDEMICS: Recommendations for International Preparedness, Response and Coordination
Abstract
International coordination for the prevention and response of major infectious disease outbreaks is insufficient under current World Health Organization (WHO) and International Health Regulations (IHR) capacities. To address national sovereignty, primarily "soft law" IHR, and failed state/fragile state challenges to effective international policy, a global convention on pandemics called "The International Convention on Pandemic Preparedness, Response and Cooperation" should be established. This convention will strengthen GOARN in disease surveillance, enforce and strengthen IHR among ratifying countries, and ensure that the United States takes the lead in making vaccines and funding for basic healthcare services and healthcare emergencies readily available to vulnerable developing states. Cronin speaks to the importance of the latter: "Countries beset by poor governance and low levels of state capacity have failed in today's world to contain and manage the spread of a contagion and mitigate its economic and political toll. The data here are compelling: 75% of epidemics during the last three decades have occurred in countries where war, conflict, and prolonged political violence have crippled their capacity to respond, leaving their neighbors and the world vulnerable." The reactionary pattern of international law on infectious diseases can no longer be considered adequate among an international community at risk of disastrous pandemics from unknown, future repositories of virulent diseases. Taking steps to improve the international community's pandemic preparedness will not be an easy task, especially as the world continues to recover from the 2007-2009 global recession. With the current budget-cutting atmosphere in Washington D.C., it will be all too easy for pandemic preparedness to fall by the wayside of national legislation. However, the stakes are high -- the world can ill afford another global outbreak of disease on the scale of the 1918 influenza pandemic.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2011
- Accession Number
- ADA559194
Entities
People
- Hal Schmidt
- Matt Brew
Organizations
- United States Air Force Academy